Monday, November 25, 2013

Happy Thanksgiving, a little early...and actually, YOU can bring the rolls. One of my favorite "go-to" recipes from a long-ago friend at the first full time job I held. I lost track of the friend, but never her fabulous crescent roll recipe - the recipe card a little worse for the wear, but it yields a favorite of my family during the holidays. Fast, easy, WICKED AWESOME results...

ROBIN'S BUTTERHORN ROLLS

2 Pkg. Dry Yeast **

1/2 C. warm water

3 eggs, beaten

3/4 C. milk, scalded

1/2 C. butter

1/2 C. sugar

1 tsp. salt

4-1/2 C. flour

** (I have had incredible results, recently, with a new yeast I've found - Red Star PLATINUM)

Add flour, mixing with large spoon as you add. Add enough flour to make a soft dough - if your dough is sticky, add a little more until you can turn it out on a floured surface and knead it a few times without it sticking to everything.

Place dough in greased bowl - cover and let rise in warm place til doubled (about an hour). Punch down dough, and divide into 3 sections. Roll each of your 3 sections into an approx. 12" circle (dough will be about 1/4 - 3/8" thick). Brush circle with melted butter. Cut circle into 4 quarters, and then into 3 wedges per quarter.

May your holiday be happy, healthy, and spent in the company of loved ones - may the air be filled with the smell of freshly baked bread, mingled with other family favorites - and before I leave you...

For those that read the "too-long ago written/not updated post" of my cell phone pictures, LOOK who I saw shopping at Walmart the other day (I admit, I was there as a last resort for something that eluded me everywhere else...not a fan of their "business ethics", and hate going there, but never say never). OK, and technically, I only saw her car (my goofy ass husband asked me, rather sarcastically, why I didn't sit in the parking lot and wait for her....................because I didn't NEED to, goofy ass!).

Pat Benatar! Not only does she shop at Walmart, but she evidently drives a Mazda Miata! I know it was her - the license plate holder identified her as the "Queen of ROCK"! Duh!

Saturday, November 2, 2013

For those of you who were always concerned about the dinosaur of an AT&T device I called a cell phone, it HAS been replaced. Before I got rid of it however, I gathered up all the weirdness that it held, in the guise of photos I had taken and amused myself with, by sending to loved ones, over the past 2 years. This IS...a view from my phone...

This truly WAS/IS "awesomeness" This large (and I DO mean LARGE - like over 6' tall) paper mache T-Rex looms over fabric bolts in a costume company in downtown Vegas. I evidently have a "thing" for dinosaurs...the Velociraptor sits in an antique store here, also...can't get much more antique than a dinosaur, I reckon.

Another antique store amusement...

And his toothy friends - clockwise: a Javelina in Bass Pro Shop; a Bobcat in the window of a trading post in Gallup, NM - seemingly with extra rows of teeth (two separate rows) like his friend, the Shark; Shark Week at Mandalay Bay's Aquarium; and another stuffed antique store find - not certain they weren't going for trying to make me think this was a Panda. These all made for great retorts to text messages, at one time or another!

I will take photos of anything...case in point...NOWORMS?

License plate finds (a Young Frankenstein fan, perhaps...and the Vanpyre plate was on a Van, of course), and some pretty sweet rides.

Cool dog waiting on the pier in Hawaii...NO one was gonna' mess with those glasses!

My Joe; our crazy Voltron!; and my sister-in-law's silly Baby, who loves his swimming pool, but doesn't want any water in it!

Family and friends will pose for anything, usually - unaware that they will show up in a blog post, eventually. My daughter did the wedding guest book of a famous guy who just got remarried here in town, recently...oops, he did it again.

Clockwise - Dad, with yet another dino; Mom and friend; cute Daughter; Dad with SOMETHING on his head, next to the Javelina; my Son, flanked by his two cousins; Mom and Jackie do Elvis at the Aria; more Daughter; my Son and Jackie's husband (my own husband is wise to my phone picture snapping).

Which brings me to my friend, Jackie...Jackie, who will pose for ANYTHING, without question...and always with the biggest smile. Jackie blending in with the crowd of a concert poster one evening. Jackie getting her brains bashed in by Joe Lewis, in the middle of Caesars Palace. Jackie, who held up a can of hairspray (without looking at it first) with the absolute worst name a company could have thought of, one day when I said, "Here - hold this and smile". That's what friends are for.

And the various boys in my phone - usually sent to Jackie - can't even tell you how many times she has received Bobby in a text.

There were a few nice things in there...a few: Swallowtail butterfly in my parent's garden; a "painting" done entirely on a sewing machine, with thread (a picture I took because they told me "no pictures"); HUNDREDS of rubber ducks in a pond in Las Vegas; the moon as I was walking around the lake one evening.

Moreover than naught, however, my phone camera is filled with things like THIS, on any given day...ohhhhhhhhhhhh, how I wish I had had my real camera for this one?!!!

Yes, most of these defy explanation. The girl with the lipstick in front of an art gallery; creepy Howdy Doody on a dark shelf in an antique store (this was also my screen saver for a huge amount of time); images I paused on my tv screen, long enough to catch - a real-life superhero in Seattle (see the Space Needle); a "catshier"; the Poltergeist girl; and a crazy monkey.

And, we're just getting started - squirrel underpants hanging at the checkout counter of a store; a seemingly HUGE Taco Bell restroom; a surprise "happy ending" fortune (the bottom fortune) in my cookie, from a local Chinese restaurant (REALLY?!); a sign outside a Smoke Shop in Gallup (where I made my dad pull quickly off a busy street so I could take the photo); bear in a window; and do NOT attempt this at home, DAD!

ARGH is RIGHT - saw these all with my own eyes (OK, one was positioned just right to get the portion of the sign I wanted, I admit - I'm pretty good at camera manipulation anymore)...barbeque sauce; a mountain town hardware store; humpback whales in a restaurant...and the dollar bill that I got back as change one day, obviously belonging to a teenage boy with a Magic Marker, before me.

"Just because" things I saw during my days out...the Miami Vice 80's boat belongs to my neighbor. I wish I knew how to drive it. And I leave you with this...taken not by me, but by my husband, at my direction, the other night (I am NOT above using other's phones for my own devices)...

They never uttered a word, but held out their bags in silence in the driveway of a friend's house, Halloween night. Cellphone photo worthy, indeed!